Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Abstract
The paper focuses on the operation of simple refrigeration cycles. With equipment given, there are, from a control and operational point of
view, five steady-state degrees of freedom; the compressor power, the heat transfer in the condenser, the heat transfer in the evaporator, the choke
valve opening and the active charge in the cycle. Different designs for affecting the active charge, including the location of the liquid receiver,
are discussed. With a given load (e.g. given cooling duty) the compressor power is set. Furthermore, it is usually optimal to maximize the heat
transfer. The two remaining degrees of freedom (choke valve and active charge) may be used to set the degree of super-heating and sub-cooling.
It is found that super-heating should be minimized whereas some sub-cooling is optimal. For a simple ammonia cycle, sub-cooling gives savings
in compressor power of about 2%. In this paper, refrigeration (cooling) cycles are considered, but the same principles apply to heat pumps.
© 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Operation; Active charge; Liquid receiver; Ammonia; Process control; Vapour compression cycle
0098-1354/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2006.12.003
J.B. Jensen, S. Skogestad / Computers and Chemical Engineering 31 (2007) 712–721 713
Fig. 1. (a) Simple refrigeration or heat pump cycle with (b) typical pressure–enthalpy diagram indicating both sub-cooling and super-heating.
cess), more complex refrigeration cycles are used in order to charge is a degree of freedom that affects the operation of the
improve the thermodynamic efficiencies. These modifications system, and this paper focuses on how to use it effectively.
lower the temperature differences in the heat exchangers and Although there is a vast literature on the thermodynamic
include cycles with mixed refrigerants, several pressure levels analysis of refrigeration cycles, there are very few authors
and cascaded cycles. Our long term objective is to study the who discuss their operation and control. Some discussions are
operation of such processes. However, as a start we need to found in text books such as Stoecker (1998), Langley (2002)
understand the simple cycle in Fig. 1. and Dossat (2002), but these mainly deal with more practical
An important result from this study is the degree of freedom aspects. Svensson (1994) and Larsen, Thybo, Stoustrup, and
analysis given in Section 2. We find that the “active” charge plays Rasmussen (2003) discuss operational aspects. A more compre-
an important role in operation of cyclic processes. This is also hensive recent study is that of Kim, Pettersen, and Bullard (2004)
directly applicable to more complex designs. Unlike an open who consider the operation of trans-critical CO2 cycles. They
process, a closed cyclic process does not have boundary condi- discuss the effect of “active charge” and consider alternatives
tions on pressures imposed by the flows in and out of the system. for placing the receiver.
Instead the pressure level is indirectly given by the external tem- The paper also discuss super-heating and sub-cooling. In the
peratures, heat exchanger sizes, load and the active charge. The literature, it is generally taken for granted that there for a given
active charge is defined as the total mass accumulated in the cycle should be no sub-cooling and super-heating (Tsub = 0 ◦ C
process equipment in the cycle, mainly in the condenser and and Tsup = 0 ◦ C) in optimal operation. For example, Stoecker
evaporator, but excluding any adjustable mass in liquid receivers (1998, p. 57) states that
(tanks).
The refrigerant leaving industrial refrigeration condensers
The effect of a change in active charge on operation depends
may be slightly sub-cooled, but sub-cooling is not normally
on the specific design. Intuitively, it seems that an increase in
desired since it indicates that some of the heat transfer surface
active charge must increase the pressure, and indeed this is true
that should be used for condensation is used for sub-cooling.
in most cases. For example, this is the case for the models used in
At the outlet of the evaporator it is crucial for protection of
this paper with plug-flow in the heat exchangers. Then more liq-
the compressor that there be no liquid, so to be safe it is
uid in the condenser gives more sub-cooling which, effectively
preferable for the vapor to be slightly super-heated.
reduces cooling and pressure increases. Similarly more liquid
in the evaporator gives less super-heating effectively increas- In this study, we confirm that super-heating is not optimal.
ing heat transfer and pressure increases. However, there may be The issue of sub-cooling is less clear. Of course, sub-cooling in
designs where the effect of charge on pressure is opposite. For itself is always optimal, as less refrigerant needs to be circulated.
example, consider a well-mixed flooded condenser where the The issue is whether sub-cooling is optimal for a given cold
heat transfer coefficient U to liquid is larger than to vapour. An source temperature and a given condenser area, because sub-
increase in charge (liquid) may then improve cooling and pres- cooling will reduce the temperature driving forces which must
sure decreases. In any case, the main point is that the “active” be compensated by increasing the pressure. We find, contrary
to popular belief, that with given equipment, sub-cooling in the
Table 1 condenser may give savings in energy usage (compressor power)
Structure of model equations in the order of 2%. An ammonia case study is presented to obtain
numerical results.
Heat exchangers (condenser and evaporator)
Q = U T dA = ṁ(hout − hin )
P = Psat (Tsat ) 2. Degrees of freedom in simple cycles
m = Vρ
Valve 2.1. Design versus operation
√
ṁ = zCV P ρ; hout = hin
Compressor
Table 2 shows typical specifications for the simple refrigera-
Ws = ṁ(hout − hin ) = ṁ(hs −hin ) tion cycle in Fig. 1 in design (find equipment) and in operation
η
(given equipment). The five design specifications include the
714 J.B. Jensen, S. Skogestad / Computers and Chemical Engineering 31 (2007) 712–721
Table 2 (3) this will not add any steady-state degrees of freedom with
Typical specifications in design and operation respect to the active charge.
Given #
Rule 1. In each closed cycle, we have one degree of freedom
Design Load (e.g. Qh ), Pl , Ph , Tsup and 5 related to the active charge, which may be indirectly adjusted by
Tsub
introducing a variable liquid level (tank; receiver) in the cycle.
Operation Ws (load), choke valve opening (z), 5
effective heat transfer (e.g. UA) in Rule 2. In each closed cycle, there will be one liquid holdup
two heat exchangers and active
that does not need to be explicitly controlled, because the total
charge
mass is fixed. This is usually selected as the largest liquid volume
in the closed system. The remaining liquid levels (holdups) must
load, the two pressures, and the degree of sub-cooling and be controlled (to avoid overfilling or emptying of tanks).
super-heating. Based on these five design specifications, external
Remark 1. Note that in Rule 2 it says “does not need” rather
conditions and an assumed isentropic efficiency for the compres-
than “must not”. Thus, Rule 2 does not say that we cannot control
sion, we may obtain the following four equipment parameters
all the liquid volumes in the system (including the largest one),
which can be adjusted during operation: compression work
but it just states that it is not strictly necessary. In fact, controlling
(Ws ) valve opening (z) and effective heat transfer (including
all the liquid volumes, provides a way for explicitly controlling
UA-values) for the two heat exchangers. Initially, we were puz-
the active charge in the cycle (Rule 1).
zled because we could not identify the missing fifth equipment
parameter to be adjusted during operation. However, we finally Remark 2. Introducing additional liquid tanks may be useful
realized that we can manipulate the “active charge” in the cycle, for operation, but at least for pure fluids, these will not introduce
which affects the operation. The fact that the charge is an inde- any additional steady-state degrees of freedom because we can
pendent variable is unique for closed systems since there is no move mass from one tank to another without affecting operation.
(external) boundary condition for pressure which would other- Also, to avoid that tanks fill up or empty, these additional levels
wise set the active charge. must be controlled (Rule 2), either by self-regulation or feedback
control.
2.2. Active charge and holdup tanks
Remark 3. In mixed refrigerant cycles two tanks may be used
For the simple cycle in Fig. 1 we have the following overall to indirectly change the composition of the circulating refrig-
material balance: erant. In this case the two tanks have different composition so
moving mass from one tank to another does affect operation.
mtot = mevap + mcon + mvalve + mcomp + mtanks (2) For more complex cycles the maximum number of degrees of
freedom related to tank holdups is the number of components in
mactive
the refrigerant.
Normally the holdups in the valve and compressor are
neglected and we get: 2.2.1. Adjusting the active charge
mtot = mevap + mcon + mtanks (3) In order to freely adjust the active charge, we need to intro-
duce a liquid tank (receiver) plus an extra valve. Kim et al. (2004)
mactive
discuss alternative locations for the variable tank holdup (liq-
With no filling, emptying or leaks, the total mass mtot is fixed. uid receiver). In Fig. 2, we show cycles for the two main cases
We have not included a holdup tank in Fig. 1, but in practice it where the tank is placed (a) on the high pressure side after the
is common to include a tank or receiver with variable liquid condenser and (b) on the low pressure side after the evaporator.
mass. It is assumed that a change in mtanks (e.g. by filling or Other placements and combinations are possible, but these are
leaking) with a constant active charge (mactive ) does not affect only variations of these two and will not add any steady-state
the operation of the cycle. This implies that the tank must contain degrees of freedom for pure refrigerants.
both liquid and gas in equilibrium (saturated). Then we can move The most obvious way of introducing a means for adjusting
mass to or from the tank without affecting the pressure, and thus the tank holdup is to add an extra valve before the tank as shown
without affecting the rest of the cycle. Thus, the liquid tank in Fig. 2. In Fig. 2(a), the liquid tank is located at an interme-
makes operation independent of the total charge in the system. diate pressure Pm after the condenser. Since the extra valve is
More importantly, the extra tank introduces an additional on the “same side” as the expansion valve (choke), the pressure
degree of freedom. This can be seen from Eq. (3): with mtot con- drop over the extra valve will not effect the efficiency of the
stant, we can by changing the mass (liquid) in the tank (mtanks ), cycle. Since Pm is assumed to be the saturation pressure at the
change the active charge (mactive ). This shows that mtanks has an tank temperature, the exit stream from the condenser must be
indirect steady-state effect on the active charge, and can there- sub-cooled (or super-critical, but this is not considered in this
fore be used for control purposes, of course provided that we paper). Thus, in Fig. 2(a), the pressure drop across the valve may
have means of changing it. be used to adjust the degree of sub-cooling in the condenser. To
Although it is possible to introduce several tanks in a cycle, understand how the extra valve creates sub-cooling, consider the
we only have one material balance for each cycle, so from Eq. pressure–enthalpy diagram in Fig. 1. The receiver (tank) with
J.B. Jensen, S. Skogestad / Computers and Chemical Engineering 31 (2007) 712–721 715
Fig. 2. Simple cycle with variable active charge. (a) Liquid tank and extra valve on high pressure side. (b) Liquid tank and extra (non-optimal) valve on low pressure
side.
Fig. 4. Evaporator with saturation at outlet giving no super-heating (optimal). (a) With separate receiver. (b) Flooded evaporator.
716 J.B. Jensen, S. Skogestad / Computers and Chemical Engineering 31 (2007) 712–721
to set the degree of super-heating to zero (optimal). Two 3. Discussion of some designs
designs are shown in Fig. 4(a), one with a separate receiver
and one using a flooded evaporator. The designs are equiva- As discussed in more detail in Section 4, we find that the ther-
lent thermodynamically, but the heat transfer coefficient and modynamic efficiency is optimized by having no super-heating
pressure drop will be different. and some sub-cooling. With this in mind, we next discuss some
alternative designs.
In summary, removing the valve gives saturation at the exit
of the heat exchanger. In the case of high-pressure liquid tank 3.1. Optimal designs
we get a sub-optimal design if we remove the valve, whereas
for the low-pressure tank we get an optimal design if the extra Two potentially optimal designs are shown in Fig. 5. The
valve is removed. reason we say “potentially optimal” is because they will only
be optimal if we use the optimal value for the sub-cooling and
super-heating.
2.3. Degrees of freedom for operation
To avoid super-heating, we have in Fig. 5(a and b) a low-
pressure tank (receiver) after the evaporator. This tank will give
In summary, we have the following five operational or control
saturated vapour out of the evaporator at steady-state (optimal),
degrees of freedom for a simple refrigeration cycle (Fig. 1):
and also by trapping the liquid it will avoid that we get liquid
to the compressor during transient operation. To avoid super-
(1) Compressor power Ws . We assume here that it is used heating we must have vapour–liquid equilibrium in the tank.
to set the “load” for the cycle. This may be achieved by letting the vapour bubble through the
(2 and 3) Effective heat transfer. There are two degrees of tank. An alternative design is the flooded evaporator in Fig. 4(b).
freedom related to adjusting the heat transferred in At the high-pressure side, we show optimal designs with both
the condenser and evaporator. This may be done in (a) no receiver and (b) a receiver and an extra valve. In (a) the
many ways, for example, by introducing bypasses, choke is used to control the degree of sub-cooling (Tsub ). Also
changing the flowrates of coolant or using a flooded other control policies are possible, for example, keeping the
condenser or evaporator to change the effective UA- choke valve position at its optimal value or controlling the pres-
value. However, we generally find that it is optimal sure, but controlling Tsub was found by Jensen and Skogestad
to maximize the effective heat transfer in the con- (2005) to be a good self-optimizing controlled variable.
denser and evaporator. There are exceptions where The design in Fig. 5(b) is thermodynamically equivalent to
it may not be optimal to maximize the heat trans- Fig. 5(a), but the addition of the tank may prevent that we get
fer in the condenser and evaporator, for example two-phase flow with vapour “blow out” through the choke. We
because, of costs related to pumps, fans or coolants, here have two adjustable holdups, so from Rule 2 one of them
but these degrees of freedom are not considered in the must be controlled. In Fig. 5(b) is shown the case where the
following. choke valve is used to control the level in the high pressure tank,
(4) Choke valve opening (z). but alternatively it could control the level in the low pressure
(5) Active charge (see Section 2.2). tank.
In practice, we are then with a given load and maximum heat 3.2. Non-optimal designs
transfer left with two steady-state degrees of freedom. These
are the choke valve opening (z) and the active charge (mactive ). Three non-optimal designs are shown in Fig. 6. Fig. 6(a)
These may be used to set the degree of super-heating and degree shows the design used in most applications except that the tank
of sub-cooling. The pressure levels (Ph and Pl ) are indirectly and condenser are often integrated as shown in Fig. 3. This com-
determined by the given (maximum) value of the heat transfer. mon design has two errors compared to the optimal solution:
Fig. 5. Two potentially optimal designs with sub-cooling and no super-heating. (a) Optimal with 1 tank. (b) Optimal with 2 tanks.
J.B. Jensen, S. Skogestad / Computers and Chemical Engineering 31 (2007) 712–721 717
Fig. 6. Three non-optimal designs. (a) Non-optimal 1, this design has two errors: (1) no sub-cooling and (2) super-heating. (b) Non-optimal 2, this design has one
error: no sub-cooling. (c) Non-optimal 3, this design has one error: super-heating.
(1) there is no sub-cooling in the condenser and (2) there is Some data for the cycle:
super-heating in the evaporator. The super-heat control is in prac-
tice accomplished with a thermostatic expansion valve (TEV). • Ambient temperature TH = 25 ◦ C.
In theory, one could get optimality by setting the setpoint for • Indoor temperature setpoint TCs = −12 ◦ C.
super-heating to zero, but in practice this is not possible because • Isentropic efficiency for compressor is 95%.
this could give liquid out of the evaporator. The setpoint for • Heat transfer coefficients (U) are 1000 and 500 W m−2 K−1
super-heating is typically about 10 ◦ C. for the evaporator and condenser, respectively.
In Fig. 6(b) we have two liquid tanks, one after the evapo- • Heat exchangers with areas given in Table 3.
rator and one after the condenser. This design is better since • Thermodynamic calculations based on SRK equation of state.
there is no super-heating in the evaporator, but one error
remains: there is no sub-cooling in the condenser. Note that The equipment is given and we have five steady-state opera-
we need to control one of the liquid levels in accordance with tional degrees of freedom (Section 2). With a given load and
Rule 2. maximum heat transfer, we have two remaining steady-state
Another non-optimal design is shown in Fig. 6(c). Here we degrees of freedom, which may be viewed as the degree of
have introduced the possibility for sub-cooling, but we have sub-cooling (Tsub ) and the degree of super-heating (Tsup ).
super-heating which is generally not optimal.
4. Optimality of sub-cooling
Fig. 8. Pressure–enthalpy diagrams with and without sub-cooling. (a) Optimal operation without sub-cooling (Fig. 6(b)). (b) Optimal operation with sub-cooling
allowed (Fig. 5).
Fig. 9. Temperature profile in condenser. (a) Temperature profile without sub-cooling. (b) Temperature profile with sub-cooling.
J.B. Jensen, S. Skogestad / Computers and Chemical Engineering 31 (2007) 712–721 719
Fig. 10. Pressure–enthalpy diagram for a cycle with and without sub-cooling. Fig. 11. Pressure–enthalpy diagram for infinite area case where condenser outlet
is at hot source temperature TH .
Table 3. We see that specifying Tmin gives no sub-cooling, operation (maximizes COP) by adjusting the valves. However,
whereas fixing the heat exchanger areas to the same value gives such schemes are quite complex and sensitive to uncertainty,
4.66 ◦ C of sub-cooling. so in practice one uses simpler schemes, like the one in Fig. 5,
where the valve controls some other variable.
5. Discussion Such variables could be:
5.1. Super-heating by internal heat exchange • Choke valve position setpoint zs (that is, the valve is left in a
constant position).
For the simple cycle in Fig. 1, some sub-cooling in the con- • High pressure (Ph ).
denser was found to be optimal, and we here discuss whether • Low pressure (Pl ).
other means of obtaining further sub-cooling, in particular the • Temperature out of condenser (T2 ).
use of internal heat exchange (Fig. 12), may be beneficial. • Degree of sub-cooling (Tsub = T2 − Tsat (Ph )).
Consider first the case when the vapour leaving the evaporator • Temperature out of evaporator (T4 ).
is saturated. In this case the internal heat exchange in Fig. 12 has • Degree of super-heating (Tsup = T4 − Tsat (Pl )).
no effect on the overall process, at least for pure fluids. This can • Liquid level in storage tank (to adjust charge to rest of system).
be understood because there is no effect on the pressure-enthalpy • Pressure drop across the extra valve if the design in Fig. 5(b)
diagram. is used.
Next, consider the case where the vapour is super-heated,
which was previously, without internal heat exchange, found to The objective is to achieve “self-optimizing” control where
be non-optimal. Depending on the properties of the fluid, this a constant setpoint for the selected variable indirectly leads
design may be desirable in some cases, even for pure refriger- to near-optimal operation (Skogestad, 2000). The selection of
ants (Radermacher, 1989). In the ammonia case study presented “self-optimizing” controlled variables for simple refrigeration
above it is not optimal with internal heat exchange, but for cycles is the main topic in Part II (Jensen & Skogestad, in press).
a trans-critical CO2 cycle, internal heat exchange with super-
heating is optimal (Neksaa et al., 1998). 6. Conclusion
5.2. Selection of controlled variable The “active charge” in a closed cycle has a steady-state effect.
This is unlike open systems, where we have boundary conditions
Without internal heat exchange, we have found that it is gen- on pressure. To adjust the degree of freedom related to the “active
erally optimal to have no super-heat (Tsup = 0 ◦ C) and some charge” one needs a liquid tank (receiver) in the cycle. The key
sub-cooling (Tsub > 0 ◦ C). In practice, no super-heating is eas- to make efficient use of this degree of freedom is to allow for
ily obtained by use of a design with a low pressure tank as sub-cooling in the condenser. Conventional wisdom says that
shown in Figs. 4(a) and 5. It is less clear how to get the right one should avoid sub-cooling in the condenser to maximize the
sub-cooling. In Fig. 5 we show a strategy where a valve is used efficiency. However, we find that some sub-cooling is desirable.
to control the degree of sub-cooling Tsub . However, the opti- For the ammonia case study we get savings in the order of 2%,
mal value of Tsub will vary during operation, and also Tsub by using the design in Fig. 5 that allows for sub-cooling. The
may be difficult to measure and control, so it is not clear that savings would be even larger if we compared with the common
this strategy is good. More generally, we could envisage an on- design in Fig. 6(a) which in addition to having no sub-cooling,
line optimization scheme where one continuously optimizes the also gives super-heating.
Nevertheless, the savings in themselves are not very large.
More importantly, the results show that the active charge is a
degree of freedom, and that the sub-cooling gives some decou-
pling between the high pressure Ph and the hot source tempera-
ture TH . This is similar to that found for other cycles, including
for mixed (multi component) fluids and trans-critical CO2 .
References
Larsen, L. S., Thybo, C., Stoustrup, J., & Rasmussen, H. (2003). Control methods Radermacher, R. (1989). Thermodynamic and heat-transfer implications of
utilizing energy optimizing schemes in refrigeration systems. In European working fluid mixtures in Rankine cycles. International Journal of Heat
control conference (ECC). and Fluid Flow, 10(2), 90–102.
Nagengast, B. A. (1976). The revolution in small vapor compression refrig- Skogestad, S. (2000). Plantwide control: The search for the self-optimizing
eration. American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning control structure. Journal of Processes Control, 10(5), 487–507.
Engineers (ASHRAE), 18(7), 36–40. Stoecker, W. F. (1998). Industrial refrigeration handbook. McGraw-Hill.
Neksaa, P., Rekstad, H., Zakeri, G. R., & Schiefloe, P. A. (1998). CO2 heat Svensson, M. C. (1994). Studies on on-line optimizing control, with application
pump water heater: Characteristics, system design and experimental results. to a heat pump. PhD thesis. Trondheim: Norges Tekniske Høgskole.
International Journal of Refrigeration, 21, 172–179.